The
programme explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's
ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses.
Politicians
and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise - that deep
within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and
fears. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these
instincts that had led to the barbarism of Nazi Germany. To stop it
ever happening again they set out to find ways to control this hidden
enemy within the human mind.
Sigmund
Freud's daughter, Anna, and his nephew, Edward Bernays, provided the
centrepiece philosophy. The US government, big business, and the CIA
used their ideas to develop techniques to manage and control the minds
of the American people. But this was not a cynical exercise in
manipulation. Those in power believed that the only way to make
democracy work and create a stable society was to repress the savage
barbarism that lurked just under the surface of normal American life.